More ideas for using voice recorders in the classroom.
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Take them outside
Technology and the outside world (for Rosemond)
This teacher had planned and resourced a week of work on Autumn Poetry, where children would extend their vocabularly to describe Autumn changes. To kick start this week, they wrapped up warm and went for a muddy walk along ‘Our Special Lane’. Take a look at what happened…
The children were so switched on to this problem they had discovered themselves and all they wanted to do was debate this issue. I had to swallow my pride, push all of my poetry planning and resources to one side, and let these young minds lead our learning. We used the class blog to explain the problem and another teacher suggested we should make posters. The blog gave my class a voice and a purpose to write. They wanted to learn about posters, but already had a lot of ideas anyway, including putting the school logo on the posters so that people would know they are from John Davies. The class displayed their work proudly on the school gates, then took their posters home to display in their bedroom windows.
Plan time outside – take your class for a walk or to a park
Click through to see the video slideshow they made and how technology helped them.
A taste of things to come
Dr Who and the Bee-Bots
Dorney School is under attack by giant Bee-bots. Dr Who saves the day. Filmed and animated by the children using digital blue cameras.
Bee-Bots are a thinking and problem solving tool
They can be used as part of the Foundation and Key Stage 1 ICT Curriculum
Link them to stories and children’s interests.
They can be customised and also linked to small world activities.
An on-screen version is available but the software has to be bought.
However the bee-bot is most effective as a physical thing the children can interact with.
- Link their use to literacy, numeracy and knowledge and understanding of the world (EYFS)
- Helps children to think beyond themselves – the robot is a tool for thinking, and for understanding predictable outcomes.
- If you tell the robot to do x then x is exactly what it will do.
(Note to my face to face class – we have one of these on order!)
Image cc Skinnyboy Evans
Oh and now there’s an app too – you can get a bee-bot game for your phone, (android soon)
Weather and Traffic
As I look out of the window it’s a brightish day, but cloudy so there could well be some more rain later. Talking about the weather is fine, and not at all boring. Weather patterns can be a fascinating subject, especially once you get into people’s reaction to the changing climes. For example people have built in expectations as to what each particular month ought to be like, and then they are disappointed if not outright angry when it doesn’t turn out that way. And yet we all know that weather is pretty much unpredictable and changeable. Every year a new record is broken at some point. If we had a year when the weather was exactly normal and didn’t break any records, why that would be a record in itself.
I’ve been puzzling lately over working out how I should calculate or rather decide the criteria by which I choose which niches I should be working on. In other words deliberating on the problem of prioritisation. So far I’ve come up with a few vague strategies, which might be worth considering. And I’ve been collecting some data on July statistics for each niche. I can see which ones make the most money, and which are failing even to break even. Now then, should I concentrate on the ones which are already working, in order to make them work better, or work on the trailing ones to bump them up above the break even line and thus justify their existence? One thing I never even thought of before now is the possibility of concentrating on the middle layer. Does that make any sense?
I formulated one plan which is to concentrate on both the top and the bottom. That would allow the possibility of leveraging success to go on to greater success, while also trying to keep a good spread, and destructive testing the potential losers. If they stay on the bottom after repeated attention, then they deserve to be ditched. The middle layer would then be left to float or sink, or maybe even stay in the middle which would mean they generate a good residual income without any effort. So that seems like a good plan.
Then there was another idea, which was to look at the overall markets and differentiate between the failing properties for new or unique niches, as opposed to failing subsidiary properties on more widely represented niches.
So if it’s a newly positioned blog in a market I don’t already have success in, then work it through to success or failure. That way we keep adding to the spread. If it’s a subsidiary blog that’s not doing so well, just leave it and concentrate on the best optimised for the main phrases. Makes some kind of sense, but also seems a bit clunky. I’m glad I’ve written this down though, because it can get a bit muddled up thinking about it.
Also, the mere collection of data is getting painful. I only do a bit at a time, and the spreadsheet is a pain to work with. Google adsense figures as a source of traffic data are easier but not by any means comprehensive.
Posted in traffic, weather
Tagged adsense, blog, climes, destructive testing, google, income, market, middle layer, niche, niches, prioritisation, rain, spreadsheet, statistics, success, traffic, weather, weather patterns
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Reflection on Guitar Tutor podcasting
Hello again, well this is becoming like meeting up with an old friend every day for twenty minutes or so. I keep on coming back here based on no more real motivation than some kind of faith that it’s doing me good. Interesting. Linda said she admired my persistence in keeping it going, I think the word she used was stubborn. And that’s the same with the weekly Andy Roberts podcast show, which I’ve been doing as a broadcast for 12 months and now as a podcast for 7 weeks. It’s interesting to try and relate this to the market leadership concept that The Challenge is teaching, and which Ed was going on about last year as well, so it’s nothing new. Keep doing something every day for a year and you can dominate the micro niche market. So that’s my lesson for becoming an ICT tutor or a guitar tutor for today. Persistence, slowly slowly catchee monkey.
So what have I achieved with the podcast so far? Well it’s only 7 weeks so that’s early days. What did I achieve with the previous year? Better question. I achieved a large number of videos on the andyrobertsmusic youTube, a following of 50 subscribers, a handful of people who have turned up to my broadcasts from time to time, I’ve probably improved my own playing and singing technique through performing live for half an hour once a week, and improved my confidence at singing my own songs. The shortcomings are quite big though. I’m still not number one for my own name, I failed to build a growing audience for the live shows, and I still don’t have a CD or paid download page that earns a little bit of money.
That was an informal reflection on the milestone of getting to seven episodes, and we have a larger one now with the 12th podcast being published yesterday. What’s needed now though, from an Action Research perspective, is a proper guided and formal reflection using a well established and carefully chosen model of reflection.
Guitar Tutor
I was just wondering about the role of a guitar tutor in these days of online courses and video tutorials. I’m sure most people learning to play the guitar would feel the need to meet face to face with somebody local and get the basics of guitar playing set up in a way that would be less reassuring online. But having said that, people will struggle through a lot to get things right by themselves and it may seem better to make use the services of an online guitar tutor rather than a local guitar tutor. Which do you think is most practical to learn from?
